Monthly archives for May, 2013

Some time ago I blogged about a great TechNet Wiki listing available hotfixes and updates for Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V and Failover Clustering:

As many of you know, keeping your Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V clusters up-to-date has become a whole lot easier with Cluster Aware Updating, which assists not only in a managed installation of relevant Windows Updates such as the monthly cumulative updates, but also for any relevant hotfixes or even BIOS/device driver updates. Fellow Hyper-V MVP Didier van Hoye aka @WorkingHardInIT has published a number of interesting blogs on this topic.

It can still be a laborious task to verify which updates and hotfixes have already been installed on your servers and which are missing. Once again my Twitter feed proved very helpful. Someone had noticed a great blog by Cristian Edwards, dealing exactly with this problem.

Using two XML files with entries for each hotfix class (Hyper-V or Cluster), you can simply check your servers by issuing this PowerShell script:

.HyperV2012UpdatesCheck.ps1 server1, server2, serverX

Of course you are still responsible for selecting only those hotfixes that apply to your configuration. Windows Server 2012 cumulative updates should always be installed.

Introduction

There is a lot to say about System Center VMM 2012 SP1. Some say System Center VMM 2012 is a must for any serious Private Cloud, others say some of its features should have been incorporated into the Windows Server OS. Early adopter of Windows Server 2012 were forced to design their environment without System Center VMM and are facing some challenges when to want to move their management functionalities to System Center VMM 2012 SP1. I did a couple of sessions on networking in System Center VMM 2012 SP1. Most Fabric Administrators find this part of VMM a bit daunting, to put it mildly.

No matter what you think of System Center 2012 SP1, if you decide to use System Center VMM 2012 SP1 to manage your Private, Hybrid or Hosted Cloud (and you should) you will find that with some features will create dependencies on System Center VMM 2012 SP1. A solid basis for your management environment requires redundancy at all levels.

In this blog I will walk you through the step to create a High Available (HA) System Center 2012 SP1 environment. The design exists of a Hyper-V cluster for physical redundancy, a guest based SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn Availability Group for database redundancy, a guest based System Center VMM 2012 SP1 failover cluster for VMM redundancy and a Scale Out File Server (SOFS) for Library redundancy.

The quorum settings for the VMM cluster and the SQL cluster are based on Node and File Majority. In a single location design the preferred additional cluster vote is a quorum disk. The advantage of a Node and File Majority is that you can divide the management environment over two geographical locations without the need for synchronous replication of a SAN based quorum disk. You could use a Windows Azure Virtual Machine to provide the file share for the SQL and the VMM cluster node and file majority.

A Scale Out File Server (SOFS) requires a shared disk for a high available share. Each location will have its own SOFS. This blog describes to steps to configure the SQL AlwaysOn Availability Group and the System Center VMM Failover Cluster.